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The Phony Regulation Debate

American business has always chafed at regulation, but rarely have the cries of outrage been as shrill as during the Obama administration. The United States Chamber of Commerce has moaned of a “regulatory tsunami of unprecedented force” issuing from Washington. Every Republican candidate this year has run on an antiregulatory platform, and one of the loudest has been Mitt Romney, who has promised to immediately tear down President Obama’s “vast edifice of regulations.”

That is not surprising, since Mr. Romney’s campaign is being bankrolled by big-business interests. The industries making unlimited donations to pro-Romney “super PACs” would prefer that Americans not be reminded that government regulations keep the air and water clean, improve the safety of consumer products, reduce workplace hazards, and prevent destructive financial practices.

It is absurd, however, for Republicans to attack Mr. Obama for carrying out an unprecedented “regulatory jihad” when, in fact, the administration has a mediocre record when it comes to curbing dangerous practices by industry. As much as any Republican administration, Mr. Obama’s has focused narrowly on the costs of a rule compared to its benefits, and has for political reasons rejected rules opposed by business. The results have often disappointed environmentalists and consumer advocates.

The administration has adopted sensible and important rules to ensure health, safety and economic security. Increased automobile fuel efficiency standards, imposed in 2010, will reduce dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment, and save money for consumers. Requiring power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants, and cutting smokestack emissions over 27 Eastern states, will improve public health. Other rules have raised truck safety standards. The president fought hard for the Dodd-Frank financial bill, which, if properly carried out, could protect consumers and help reduce the banking abuses that led to the Great Recession.

Nonetheless, the administration has issued slightly fewer rules than George W. Bush did at the same point in his tenure. A draft of its most recent report to Congress says that the $19.8 billion cost to the economy associated with all of its major rules through 2011 was slightly less than the cost of regulations issued in the last years of the Bush administration. But the administration says the $91 billion in health and other social benefits of those rules was about 30 times greater than those from the Bush regulations.

The White House’s restraint means that two-thirds of the rules required to carry out Dodd-Frank have yet to be finalized, to cite one example. And there are numerous other examples of capitulation to political or industry pressure:

¶Last month, the Labor Department withdrew a proposed rule that would have reduced the deaths of children working on farms by prohibiting them from using power equipment and working in silos and stockyards. Farm lobbyists had loudly protested the rule, but human rights advocates rightly pointed out that the rule was needed to protect migrant teenage workers.

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¶Workplace regulation has ground to a halt, largely because of the kind of cost-benefit analysis imposed by Congress and championed by the administration’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. A rule limiting exposure to silica dust, which can cause cancer and other illnesses in the road-building and sandblasting industries, has been in the works for 14 years. Hundreds of doctors and safety experts have urged the administration to issue the rule, but it is stalled while the White House weighs the benefits.

¶The single biggest disappointment has been the president’s refusal to tighten the national standards on smog, clearly giving way to re-election concerns in the face of industry pressure. In August, when a pulmonologist explained the terrible effects of ozone on the lungs of children, William Daley, the White House chief of staff at the time, responded, “What are the health impacts of unemployment?” That is precisely the kind of false choice that big business and Republicans constantly demand, as if jobs and the economy cannot survive if public health is protected.

Mr. Daley’s telling remark shows how ridiculous it is for Mr. Romney to claim that agencies can now impose any rule they like with little or no presidential oversight. In the end, no amount of capitulation by the Obama administration will end the attacks from the right. In fact, Republicans are running against the rejected ozone rule anyway, insisting that Mr. Obama will eventually adopt it.

Mr. Romney is open about his position: Economic growth is more important than environmental or other rules, so all new major rules should require the consent of Congress. That may be a recipe for higher profits, but such a full-blown rejection of government’s regulatory responsibility would make life for Americans far more difficult and dangerous.

A version of this editorial appears in print on May 27, 2012, on Page SR10 of the New York edition with the headline: The Phony Regulation Debate. Today's Paper|Subscribe